Listen up all you trendwatchers-the following
"fads" go far beyond your typical short-lived craze. (In
fact, we called some of 'em in the past and they're still
hot.) Read on for the latest on what's hot-from the
well-established (think herbal remedies) to the extreme (boot camp,
anyone?).

The Sooner, The Better

Quick cash, fast food, drive-thru, speed service-call it what
you will, but when customers want it, you'd better provide it
immediately. Consumers are placing more importance than ever on
time and convenience. No longer are time and money being calculated
in the traditional sense, as money saved by consumers driving out
of their way to save a buck, but rather as minutes spent away from
the family. The Families & Work Institute reveals 70 percent of
parents feel they don't spend enough time with their children
and have less time for personal activities. If you can provide
customers with a timesaving option, they'll pay for it. This
translates into anything from delivery services and house calls to
drive-thru windows and easy-access express locations, especially
for service establishments that are traditionally inconvenient,
such as pharmacies and dry cleaners. Some of the more unusual
convenient services we've seen? How about drive-thru viewing at
a Compton, California, mortuary or a scooper service for pets'
lawn deposits?

One sure bet on the convenience angle is helping clients
organize their busy lives. Check out two current hot businesses:
concierge services and personal chef. Another growing profession is
personal organizers; membership in the National Association of
Professional Organizers has climbed from about 800 members in 1996
to close to 1,100 today.

Girls' Club

Cheers of "Go team!" from pompom-sporting girls are
conspicuously absent when those same girls are screaming
"Slaughter 'em!" from the bench or the dugout. Last
year, we reported a significant increase in women's sports, and
one group has been particularly influenced by such factors as the
WNBA and the new influx of female sports heroines: school-aged
girls. More girls are involved in team sports than ever. One
oft-quoted statistic from the Women's Sports Foundation cites
that in the early 1970s, only one in 27 girls was involved in a
high school team sport. By 1996, that number had increased to one
in three. "Now, young girls grow up expecting to
participate," says Sandi Bittler, director of women's
sports marketing for Nike, which has a girls-only Web site called
Girls in the Game.

However, this niche is hardly filled to date. Take note,
entrepreneurs: When Mary Tenety and Lori Schmid could find only
ill-fitting unisex and boy's sports apparel and gear for their
athletic daughters, they started The Female Athlete, a
thrice-yearly catalog aimed at female athletes aged 8 to 23 that
provides the gear needed to compete and motivational products that
celebrate girls. You go, girls.

She Shoots...

Girls' Favorite Sports

1. Basketball2. Track and field3. Volleyball4. Softball5. Soccer

Source: The National Federation of State High School
Associations

Herb's The Word

Who says money doesn't grow on trees? The herbal products
industry might tend to disagree. As consumer acceptance of natural
treatments pushes sales of herbal supplements through the roof,
this alternative-therapy market just keeps spreading into the
mainstream. Wal-Mart and Bayer Corp. have launched their own herbal
supplement lines, physicians are recommending herbal supplements as
inexpensive alternative remedies, and even kids and pets are
receiving herbal treatments. "This is coming from the
consumer," says Mark Blumenthal, founder of the American
Botanical Council. "It's not like one day the medical
profession woke up and smelled the herbal tea and realized there
were some gentle, safe, well-researched, low-cost herbal medicines
available."

So what are the newest trends in this ever-hot industry? Maureen
Rogers, director of the Herb Growing and Marketing Network, points
to herbal pet treatments, specialty remedies for women and kids,
kava kava and St. John's wort. Rogers says the herbs to watch
for are Chinese, Indian and South American herbs, as well as the
cultivation of nearly extinct or endangered herbs usually harvested
in the wild, like goldenseal, ginseng and slippery elm.